“I struggled with depression. The struggle was intense,” Jackson wrote in a letter shared with Essence magazine. “Low self-esteem might be rooted in childhood feelings of inferiority. It could relate to failing to meet impossibly high standards. And of course there are always the societal issues of racism and sexism. Put it all together and depression is a tenacious and scary condition. Thankfully, I found my way through it.”

“The height of happiness is holding my baby son in my arms and hearing him coo, or when I look into his smiling eyes and watch him respond to my tenderness,” she writes. “When I kiss him. When I sing him softly to sleep. During those sacred times, happiness is everywhere.”

Later in the letter, she touches on the #MeToo movement and the importance of female empowerment.

“We are living at a time in history when women all over the world are refusing to be controlled, manipulated, exploited or abused,” she proclaims. “We have found our strength, and we will not relent.”